Kate tries out going back to work

Kate's thinking about returning to work in the New Year.

And while she mulls over how many days a week to go back, here's her practising what the Friday of a 4-day week could look like. With Madeleine's help, of course.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, eat your heart out

The tower that Maddie built...

... almost.

Food, glorious food

After much deliberation, this weekend was deemed 'chow time' given we were down at Heatherfield (and could therefore make lots of mess in Maddie's paternal grandparents' house, rather than our own - but don't tell them).

Step 1: a morning of spoon training.

Open wide, in (prolonged suck) and out.

Tick.

Step 2: test-drive the real thing.

Put fingers into spoon of baby rice. Put face into spoon of baby rice. Get limited amounts of baby rice into mouth. Keep looking at camera.

Tick. Tick. Tick. And tick.

Although apparently Dad needs to work on his portion sizes. I'm told the first time Maddie might only want a spoonful rather than a bowlful, as these leftovers would suggest.

Reunited

Yesterday we hooked up with our NCT posse (sadly, no Wenda & Jim and therefore no Jack & Kitty) but everyone else was there in force.

Including, it seemed, every other NCT group in North West London. Queens Park was positively teeming with groups of babies and their buggies.

It was of course also a great opportunity to take an updated team photo, thanks to Martin and the camera-that-puts-all-other-cameras-to-shame:

From left to right: Ava, Ludo, Aoife, Aaron, Evie and Madeleine.

Her Mad-esty once again appears to be lashing out, just as she did last time we lined everyone up.

I'm starting to think Martin is encouraging this belligerence on camera.

Ooooh, my hand

I've just spent a mesmerising 45 minutes putting Madeleine to bed.

She spent the entire time looking in awe at her left hand, in a royal wave like gesture. Over and over and over again.

Her Madesty, indeed.

The Ponte way

The Ponte Grandparents have been down this week offering their own unique take on how to entertain 5 month old babies.

This is Maddie smiling at the prospect of going to the pub with Granddad:

And this is Grandma attempting to keep Maddie quiet with The Simpsons:

And yes, the socks don't match her outfit. That's because Grandma dressed her...

Sleep training

This is how we're attempting to persuade Maddie to sleep through until morning.

I reckon if every baby had a silk eye mask, there'd be fewer tired parents out there....

The baby Roskill meets the Lady Roskill

Okay, not for the first time, but at least we finally remembered to bring the camera.

People often comment on how impressive Madeleine's head of hair is for a 5 month old. Finally the tables are turned - Madeleine's face shows just how impressive Granama's coiffure is for a 91 year old.

Baby blog envy

Now THIS is a baby blog.

Adele Enerson - we salute you.

(And we will obviously do something very similar for a Christmas card this year, featuring Maddie, and passing it off as our own creative genius. But no one will ever know).

Is that silence I hear?

We've finally found something that keeps our little noise box quiet.

Here's Matt with a rapt Maddie reading Hairy Maclary.

And yes, I've tried (and tried) parking her in front of the TV as well, but our little Chucky is clearly the intellectual (attention seeking) type...